As Gustav Nears, Gulf Coast Puts Faith in Planning

With Gustav approaching hurricane strength
and showing no signs of veering off a track to slam into the Gulf
Coast, authorities across the region began laying the groundwork
Thursday to get the sick, elderly and poor away from the shoreline.

The first batch of 700 buses that could ferry residents inland
were being sent to a staging area near New Orleans, and officials
in Mississippi were trying to decide when to move Katrina-battered
residents along the coast who were still living in temporary homes,
including trailers vulnerable to high wind.

The preliminary planning for a potential evacuation is part of a
massive outline drafted after Hurricane Katrina slammed ashore
three years ago, flooding 80 percent of New Orleans and stranding

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thousands who couldn't get out in time. As the region prepared to
mark the storm's anniversary Friday, officials said they were
confident those blueprints made them ready for Gustav.

"There are a lot of things that are different between now and
what we faced in 2005 when Katrina came ashore," said U.S.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who flew to Louisiana
to meet with New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Gov. Bobby Jindal.
"We've had three years to put together a plan that never existed
before."

With Gustav still several days away, authorities cautioned that
no plans were set in stone, and had not yet called for residents to
leave. Projections showed the storm arriving early next week as a
Category 3 storm, with winds of 111 mph or greater, anywhere from
the Florida Panhandle to eastern Texas. But forecasts are extremely
tentative several days out, and the storm could change course.

Governors in both Louisiana and Texas pre-declared states of
emergency in an attempt to build a foundation for federal
assistance. Batteries, bottled water, and other storm supplies were
selling briskly. Roughly 3,000 National Guard troops were on
standby in Louisiana, and another 5,000 were readying in Texas.
Hotels in the region reported being booked solid by coastal
residents planning ahead.

"We're almost sold out," said Sheila Harris, the
administrative assistant at the Comfort Inn in Tupelo, Miss, which
is about 300 miles inland from the Mississippi coast. She said most
of the 83 rooms at the hotel had been booked by New Orleans and
southern Mississippi residents.

Many residents found themselves repeating the same things they
did in the days before Katrina. The New Orleans Saints were set to
play the Miami Dolphins in the team's final NFL preseason game
Thursday night; the Saints played their final game of the 2005
preseason just three days before Katrina. Running back Deuce
McAllister, who was planning to shore up his suburban home, found
it a little weird to be preparing for a possible storm again.

"It's out of our hands," said McAllister. "We'll just have to
wait and see what happens."

The city was expected to announce later Thursday whether
officials would go ahead with events to mark the Katrina
anniversary. Among the events that have been planned are a jazz
funeral to bury remains of unidentified Katrina victims and a
candlelight vigil at Jackson Square.

If a Category 3 or stronger hurricane threatens, New Orleans
plans to institute a mandatory evacuation order. Depending on the
churn of this system, the call could come with a slow-moving
Category 2, the city's emergency preparedness director, Jerry
Sneed, said.

Nagin said in interviews Wednesday that the clock on an
evacuation would start three days, or 72 hours, from an anticipated
landfall.

Unlike Katrina, there will be no massive shelter at the
Superdome, a plan designed to encourage residents to leave.

Residents who need help - the elderly, disabled, those without
their own transportation - would be moved out by buses, bound for
shelters in other Louisiana cities such as Alexandria, Shreveport
and Monroe, and Amtrak trains headed to Jackson, Miss., officials
have said. Others are expected to leave on their own by vehicle.

The city said it is prepared to move 30,000 residents; estimates
put the city's current population between 310,000 to 340,000
people. There were about 454,000 here before Katrina hit.

Though officials urged residents to prepare by securing their
homes, finding valuables and locating personal documents, some were
taking a wait-and-see attitude. In Alabama, many tourists and
residents were taking a wait-and-see attitude, and were more
focused on the upcoming Labor Day weekend.

"We plan to sit in a bar and watch the whole thing," joked
Greg Lee, a tourist from Clarksville, Tenn. He was grocery shopping
with family members, stocking up on cold beverages and planning to
stay through the holiday at their beach house at Fort Morgan, down
a beach road from Gulf Shores.

Hurricane-seasoned officials also were hoping for the chance
forecasts were wrong. Joey Durel, president of Lafayette's city and
parish governments, said officials in that south-central Louisiana
community may begin handing out sandbags to residents as early as
Friday - but hoped they wouldn't need them.

"We're glad to see we're in the (forecast) path because they
never get it right this far out," Durel said. "I say that
slightly tongue in cheek, but it's true."